


Chasing Perfection

by Route212 (AlleyCatSunflower)



Series: Shreds and Patches [2]
Category: Pocket Monsters: Black & White | Pokemon Black and White Versions, Pocket Monsters: Black 2 & White 2 | Pokemon Black 2 & White 2 Versions
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Ficlet Collection, Fluff, Friendship, Oneshot Prompts Challenge, Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-13 15:07:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28905363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlleyCatSunflower/pseuds/Route212
Summary: A collection of moments when N and Hilda find themselves in one another. Each installment will most likely be out of order and with a different theme, so I'm not rating the work as a whole. Instead, I'll include more precise rating information in the summary at the beginning of each chapter. Contains various spoilers (and mention of some other main-series regions/characters).
Relationships: N | Natural Harmonia Gropius/Touko | Hilda
Series: Shreds and Patches [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2116677
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	1. Your Arms Around Me

**Author's Note:**

> All prompts in this story are taken from [this list](https://www.deviantart.com/british-prophetess/art/20-Themes-Challenge-Alternative-Universe-Romance-288736515). I may end up doing them out of order, but I will do all of them eventually.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Friendship with romantic tension. Rated G.

Hilda has imagined her reunion with N more times than she can count.

She may have initiated the chase, but she isn't sure what will happen when she finally catches up with him. N left on such a bittersweet note, offering her hope and encouragement even as it had been stripped from him moments before. Why did he leave? What is he looking for, out on his own? How long will it be until he finds it?

It took a few seasons before Hilda went after him, but if N wasn't going to come back and answer the questions she didn't have time to ask, it followed that she would have to find him instead. So she flew away, the morning after her seventeenth birthday, because she had long enough to think about what she wants. She wants the answers to her questions, and she does _not_ want that farewell to be their last.

Over the next year or so, traveling through new regions and meeting new people, Hilda has learned more than school could ever teach her… but never N's whereabouts. It might be easier if she could understand the language of Pokémon, or if she had a clearer memory of his appearance. As it is, Hilda remembers N most clearly in her dreams; the image blurs and fades again when she wakes.

Once, in Hoenn, Hilda encountered a young man with green hair, and could scarcely hide her disappointment when he turned around. His eyes were gray, but his features were softer, his smile shyer. But the young man—Wally, as he called himself—was kind enough to ask if she was looking for someone else, and upon hearing her story, volunteered to exchange contact information in case he or any of his friends found him first.

Hilda thought he was just being polite, but she gets a call on the day she was planning to leave Hoenn. Something about the Sky Pillar.

The place smells as ancient as it looks, as though it has been sealed for centuries, but torches light the way. Hilda gives no thought to why they're there, nor does she stop to contemplate the murals stretching across the walls. Her heart is in her throat as she ascends the tower, stumbling a few times in her haste. Her muscles burn from climbing ladders, but she doesn't want to miss him again, to have to stand there helplessly and watch him fly far away—

Looking up at the foot of yet another ladder, Hilda prepares to see more firelight flickering on more stone, but instead sees the stars. This, then, must be the top.

Sudden fear overtakes her, and she hesitates, taking the chance to catch her breath, trying not to cough at the dust. N is perceptive enough that he's probably heard her approach already; a cough might be too much. And what if she's too late, and he's gone again by the time she reaches the top? What if Wally's source was mistaken, and it was never him in the first place?

Hilda supposes she'll never know if she doesn't get climbing. Doing her best to center herself, she climbs up the last ladder and steps onto the stone.

N is there, standing at the parapet, gazing up at the stars. It's cold up here, and windy, but Hilda's shiver is more from simply seeing him again. He looks like a ghost, his shirt shining white in the moonlight, his hair still in its long ponytail and baseball cap. It's almost as though he hasn't aged at all in the years they've spent apart, though she has never known how old he is. N could have been anywhere between seventeen and twenty when they first met. He could _still_ be.

He turns, the breeze tugging at his clothes and ruffling his hair. Hilda doesn't know what her expression looks like, but it must be something like N's: recognition and shock and wariness and delight, all at once, in a bewildering haze of sudden emotion. Both of them probably look less surprised than the other thought. Did he expect her here tonight? Has he let her catch him?

Hilda wants to say something, but she can't think what. There is both too much and too little that comes to mind, and none of her thoughts make it to her tongue. So she just approaches, step by cautious step—he takes only one back, uncertainly—until she stands before N. Even she isn't sure what she's going to do in the moments before she throws her arms around him.

They've never touched before. Maybe that's why there was a part of Hilda that thought N wasn't real at all, that he _was_ a ghost or spirit or trickster Pokémon. But he's tangible now, alive and human, his heart beating as she presses her ear to his chest, and she can feel his breath catch.

For a moment, Hilda is afraid N might pull away, but then he puts his arms around her too with a soft breath like a chuckle, and it's music to her ears. She worried, maybe more than she should, that she'd hurt him in some way, that he thought she was to blame for the events that led up to the destruction of his reality. But she can feel from the gentleness of his touch that in some way, he must have missed her too.

Long past the time Hilda would have let go of anyone else, she doesn't want to let go of N. What if he leaves as soon as she does? It's a childish fear, but she stays like this anyway, squeezing a little more tightly to soak in the moment as thoroughly as she can. N smells nice in a way Hilda can't describe or explain, even to herself. She gets lost in trying to figure it out, so that she doesn't even notice that she feels lightheaded until she sways in place.

Hilda isn't close enough to falling for N to _catch_ her, but she feels his arm strengthen to steady her in their embrace. "You're all right?"

Taking a deep breath, Hilda nods. "Better than I've been in years," she says truthfully, and N gives a tentative smile, releasing her. Hilda is almost disappointed, but they _were_ just standing there for what must have been more than a minute. It was already a miracle N didn't try to pull away sooner. "I just… came up here too fast."

N nods. "I know. I heard you coming."

Struggling not to feel too elated, Hilda smiles. So he _did_ wait for her. "How did you know it was me?"

"Only the worthy are allowed here," says N, glancing back up at the sky. "There aren't many others it could have been. And in any case, I'd want to meet whoever it was." He pauses for a moment, as though contemplating something, and Hilda doesn't dare to break the silence. "But… I did hope it was you."

That pleases Hilda more than she'd like to admit. "So I'm still considered worthy, huh?"

"Of course you are," says N without the slightest hesitation, and Hilda is about to be even happier when he continues, "Fateful encounters leave you marked for life." Hilda doesn't have time to point out that she meant to ask after _his_ estimation, as he turns his back on her to lean against the parapet again. "Otherwise, I wouldn't have been permitted here, myself."

N's words are weighted with untold stories, but his tone isn't final enough for Hilda to think they will stay that way. Casting aside the intention to correct him, she walks up to stand beside him, turning her head to regard him and trying not to look too awestruck. She _would_ look at the stars, but N is more remarkable. "It sounds like you have a lot to tell me."

Hilda's voice turns hoarse, and she coughs faintly, a little self-conscious. N looks concerned at first, but soon realizes she's just clearing her throat. "I do," he says, returning his eyes to the sky as if with an effort. "But before anything else, I want to say… thank you. For opening my heart to the rest of the world."

Out of everything Hilda might have expected N to say to her, that isn't it. His thanks feel like forgiveness, and she's so glad to hear it that she can't afford to hesitate. "You're welcome," she says simply, and rests her hand on N's after a brief hesitation. It's a much less intimate touch than their embrace, but it feels twice as electric. Especially as N makes no move to withdraw, another faint smile touching his lips.

Yes, Hilda has imagined this many times. But the reality is even better than she pictured.


	2. Reading Quietly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fluff, established relationship. Rated G.

N didn't think he liked poetry.

Of course, he also didn't think he'd ever fall in love, but here he is, sitting with Hilda on her secondhand sofa… and reading a collection of poems. Her head weighs on his shoulder heavily enough that he thinks she might be sleeping, but neither of them has anywhere to go at this hour. N was going to spend the night at Hilda's apartment anyway.

Turning his eyes back to his book of poems, N tries not to disturb his sleeping girlfriend as he turns the page. He thought poems were just jumbles of words people think are deep, talking endlessly about trauma and tragedy and things he knows too well to dwell on, all broken up in ways nobody talks. But as it turns out, there are more kinds of poetry than he expected.

_Metered_ poetry. There are formulas, rules, a structure into which a poet must fit their ideas. Pretty words are of no use if they don't scan correctly.

N likes all of it better than the freeform he's seen before, but he's especially fond of iambic pentameter—it can be used in more forms. He doesn't like blank verse; it breaks the rhyming rule. But he likes sonnets, and especially villanelles. It's a puzzle the like of which he has only encountered in numbers before. What fits the pattern? How does one use the exact same phrase in multiple ways?

These poems fascinate N more than he thought mere words ever could. When it came to humanity, he was always one for facts and figures, far more than feelings. The fact that he's found a form of artistic expression that fits into his own worldview is nothing short of a miracle. (Even if he _is_ so preoccupied with counting syllables and tracing emphasis that he doesn't pay attention to what the words are saying.)

Even though N only started this book after they sat down, he reaches the end of it within the hour. It isn't a very long one, and he's known to be a quick reader, but he's disappointed to finish it all the same. Perhaps that's why he lingers a little longer over the meaning of the final poem's very last stanza, on a page unto itself.

_A moment frozen; therein lies the key: /_ _Lest luster dim and sparkle dull withal, / One cannot freeze the waves that crown the sea._

Hilda stirs, and N glances aside, trying not to move in case she's still asleep. But she frowns and shifts and stretches slightly, making a faint noise in the back of her throat, and her eyes flutter open and focus on N. Maybe the poet is putting words in his mind, but her eyes are the color of the ocean. N didn't notice until years after their adventure, when she came close enough to see. Now it's his favorite color.

_To hold a moment, one must set it free._

"Hey," says Hilda, her voice a sleepy mumble, and N can't help but smile. Happiness comes to him so easily when he's with her. And he's not one to dwell too much on the future anymore—not when the present is right here, waiting to be explored—but he's beginning to think a little more about the concept of _forever_. Because then, even if everything fades and blurs into the past, his present will still be something like this.

_Each moment must become a memory._


End file.
